Objectives of the Conference: 1. To bring together materials scientists/engineers, chemists, chemical engineers, physicists, biomaterials scientists/engineers, etc., to share state-of-the-art understanding and applications of materials that are inspired by biological models. 2. To foster collaborative relationships between researchers in the materials science community in disparate areas such as biomaterials mineralized materials, colloidal systems, and self-assembled materials so that new and/or better ways of designing advanced materials will be encouraged. 3. to facilitate opportunities for junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students to present research results in an interdisciplinary and dynamic national symposium. 4. to provide connections between basic research results and industrial application of materials with novel structure and/or function. While many symposia focus only on the use of synthetic materials for biomaterials applications or on one biological model of materials synthesis, few symposia have linked biD-inorganic materials, polymers, and colloidal systems under a common biologically inspired theme. The organizers believe that a symposium devoted to the broader scientific and materials challenges encompassed by these varied areas will promote cross-fertilization of ideas and technologies, and thereby help to accelerate scientific advancements in these highly interdisciplinary fields. The applications of such advancement would be far reaching, as the design of materials based on biological principles has applications in many biomedical, engineering, and scientific fields from tissue engineering to biomaterials to Photonics.